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How to mentally prepare for fertility treatment

Preparing for IVF treatment isn’t easy; add into the mix juggling relationships, work and other every day realities, and it can become extremely overwhelming. We spoke to fertility counsellor Melissa Stephens to get some tips to help try and manage the stress of these situations.

Friends and family

It’s important to have a support network when going through IVF for those moments when you need a shoulder to lean on. Confiding in your nearest and dearest - perhaps a sister or best friend - can provide an outlet on the hard days and can make a world of difference.

How many people you share your journey with is entirely up to you. The one thing to be aware of is, the more people who know, the more people who will check in on you and that can sometimes become stressful when you don’t feel like talking. If you ever feel this way, it’s okay to say things like “thank you for your support on this, I’m just taking a mental break – if I feel like I need to talk about anything, I will come to you”.

9 to 5

Sharing your situation with work colleagues can be challenging. There will be times where you may need to leave the office for appointments or take medication, or just feel like you’re not quite as focused as you usually are. If so, you may want to tell your immediate manager in confidence.

If you don’t have that kind of relationship with your manger but have a colleague who is supportive, it may be helpful for them to be aware of what’s happening. Some women feel more comfortable keeping their treatment private but making excuses each time you need to leave the workplace can be hard, especially if you have experienced several cycles.

Your relationship with your partner

Your relationship is one of the most significant parts of your journey. The experience is as much physical as it is emotional for women undergoing IVF and they need to be in tune with what is happening with their bodies. Plus there is the added pressure of having to remember when to take injections and waiting for test results. This combination can make it difficult to switch off from the process.

A partner’s part in the process is often considered ‘easy’. However, not having more of a physical part to play can often heighten the pressure someone feels to support their partner going through treatment. No matter how uncomfortable it may be, when it comes to handling the day to day with your partner, communication really is key. Tell each other how you’re feeling, what might be weighing on your mind and what is helpful for you at that time. One option is to make a specific time during the day, perhaps 15 minutes before dinner, to talk about anything to do with the treatment.

Some coping strategies that can work really well for couples can be planning things to look forward to, like social events, small trips or starting a home project – any goals that are achievable and will keep the connection, romance and fun in your relationship.

Social occasions

IVF can often be a lengthy process and naturally, social events will pop up that may be more difficult to attend than they used to be. Family events such as Christmas or Easter can be particularly challenging, especially if family members are asking “when is the baby coming?” A good response to these questions is having a prepared line to say, such as “If there’s any news, I’ll let you know”.

One of the more difficult situations for women is baby showers. It may not be something you feel like attending when you are going through IVF and it is okay to say no to these events. Instead, you can send a gift and say you have prior commitments.

Take time out for you

There are many people that go through IVF treatment for an extended period of time. Often, when they look back, they remember focusing on little else and feel they missed out on memories, other experiences and life in general.

Try and remember to focus on yourself. Self-care keeps you in the right frame of mind to tackle any obstacles that may be ahead of you.

On an IVF journey it’s important to do things that make you feel good about yourself, whether that’s exercise, being outside, pampering yourself, meditation or even just time to be by yourself with your thoughts.

And most importantly, if you don’t have immediate success in IVF you will go through a grieving process. Couples will experience a lot of normal emotions; sadness, anger, frustration, confusion. The worst thing you can do is ignore these feelings; it’s important to sit with it and work through it because the feelings won’t go away by themselves.

If you’re going through treatment or feel like you need a little extra support, call your clinic or follow the links below.

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Further to his interview on Channel 9’s 60 minutes programme, Dr Ben Kroon of Queensland Fertility Group discusses the topic of post mortem sperm retrieval.

Thankfully for the vast majority of people, post mortem sperm retrieval will never become a reality.

It is an extremely complex and challenging area of reproductive medicine, involving retrieval of sperm after a man’s death so that it can be used by his surviving partner.

While new assisted reproductive technologies are allowing more people than ever to fall pregnant and start the family they desire, the law, at times, does not keep pace with these developments.

In Australia, the law does not specifically address the issue of retrieval and use of sperm after a man’s death. So, while a partner may be sure she knows what her partner ‘would have wanted’, without supporting legal documents explicitly stating those wishes, the question of retrieval and use of sperm is not clear.

In most cases, an urgent court order is needed to retrieve sperm. This is a problem because while the judge is coming to a decision, every hour that the sperm lies in the body after death decreases the chance of finding live sperm.

While 24 hours is the accepted time period for successful retrieval, there may still be a small chance up to 36 hours after death. However, while retrieval might be medically successful, the court may never permit a woman to use the sperm.

I co-authored a paper, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, in which we surveyed 28 IVF clinics across Australasia to test attitudes towards posthumous sperm retrieval and use.

It appears that directors of IVF units are generally supportive of the practice, given the right circumstances, but that the lack of clear laws makes the response to requests for sperm retrieval very difficult.

Myself, and the papers co-authors, believe that ‘clear, accessible and consistent law in this area would benefit everyone involved, including the medical, legal and societal stakeholders’.

It is not only the law that needs to catch up. In the same way that people discuss organ donation, I believe that couples should discuss post mortem sperm use.

Men should consider and discuss with their partners whether they would want to father a child after their death, bearing in mind that they could not raise the child, and that the child could conceivably be raised by another man.

I need to be clear that I am not suggesting that more people should have their sperm collected and used after their death.

Personally, I wouldn’t want my sperm to be retrieved and used if I died suddenly, and my wife knows this. But, if couples don’t have the discussion and document their wishes, it is seldom clear what one would have wanted if one dies.

Have you considered discussing post mortem sperm retrieval with your partner?

In 2007 a local Melbourne paediatrician approached me curious about whether girls conceived through In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) and other Assisted Reproductive Treatments (ART) enter puberty earlier than those conceived spontaneously. With the first babies born through IVF now reaching their mid-30s, this query was my early motivation and the catalyst to initiate a study on the effects of IVF and ART on the health and wellbeing of children conceived through these technologies.

How healthy are IVF children?

This project was the largest of its kind ever attempted, worldwide.

We found that children conceived by IVF grew into healthy, normal adults when compared to children conceived spontaneously.

The collaborative study initially funded by Melbourne IVF prior to a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grant involved researchers from Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Monash IVF, the University of Melbourne and Monash University. Interviewing 656 mothers who used ART and their 547 young adult offspring aged between 18 and 29 years, and compared this to reports from 868 mothers and their 549 young adult offspring who were conceived spontaneously.

Self-report of their health and wellbeing for the first 18 years of life found the ART children had a normal body mass index and similar history of pubertal development to those spontaneously conceived. Educational outcomes, including tertiary admission ranked scores and completion of tertiary education, were also similar.

Were there differences in the health of IVF-conceived children?

Mothers did report a higher rate of hospitalisation, as well as a higher rate of asthma and hay fever in ART children. We found this to be in line with what we already know as a common mild condition in the whole community. The rate is not much higher at 23% of spontaneously conceived children experiencing allergies, compared to 30% of ART children.

These problems are more common in premature babies and we know a higher proportion of ART babies are born prematurely for reasons still largely unknown. Premature births may be because of the age of IVF mothers, as having a baby in your early 40s is generally harder than having a baby in your late 20s or early 30s.

ART parents might take their children to the GP more often and consequently they are diagnosed at a higher rate. We found ourselves speculating if parents of IVF-conceived children are more protective reducing their baby’s exposure to dust and dirt in turn increasing their risk factor for later allergies.

The finding of increased hospitalisations, including in the secondary school years, has not been examined in other studies to date and the reasons for hospitalisation varied, with no consistent set of conditions. Again, we wonder if this is due to parental vigilance.

What will be done to investigate further?

This study fills an important gap in our knowledge about the long term health outcomes of children conceived via IVF and ART. Our results indicate that the perceived physical, mental health, social and environmental quality of life reported by the 547 ART-conceived adults is very similar to that of their non-ART conceived peers.

We have a responsibility to continue this research and gather further clinical review in long term follow up of those conceived through IVF and other ART. Further research will evaluate their health status and follow up to determine if there are any important lifelong medical or other legacies of IVF.

What does this mean for those considering IVF?

This study provides reassurance to those requiring IVF that there are no apparent substantial negative long term health and wellbeing effects on young adults compared to those spontaneously conceived.

The media is increasingly full of stories showcasing the latest 50 year old mum, or the celebrity who has undergone IVF. Even women who have used donor eggs are increasingly more comfortable discussing their medical history.

But, do these sensationalised stories really reflect the changing face of the IVF patient we see every day at our fertility clinic?

At Queensland Fertility Group Toowoomba we decided to assess the reality of these changes. In order to do this we conducted a retrospective study of 1587 women who had undergone IVF between 1998 and 2013 at our clinic in Toowoomba (based in the Darling Downs, west of Brisbane). We know that during this time there has been considerable social change, and we were interested to see how our patients may correspondingly have changed during this 15 year period.

Older women

Studies carried out by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare informs us that the average age of women receiving treatment using their own eggs or embryos, is 36 years. We know too that over the last 20 years the average age of women giving birth has increased by 7.5%.

What did our study of 1,587 women show? The average age of women undergoing IVF treatment in Toowoomba has significantly increased by 6% - from 33 years in 1998 to 35 years in 2013. Interestingly, the major shift has been the marked increase in the number of women aged over 39 completing treatment - which 15 years ago was just 3% and by 2013 had grown to 18%.

Rising obesity

The number of overweight and obese Australians has been gradually increasing for the past 30 years across all demographics – from wealthy, metropolitan suburbs to rural and disadvantaged communities.

An Australian Bureau of Statistics Australian Health Survey identified that between 1995 and 2011/12 the average adult woman’s weight had increased by 4kgs. The report likewise stated that in 2011/12 27% of all females aged 18 and over were overweight with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 25 to 30.

Toowoomba is no exception to this trend. It’s therefore not surprising that the average IVF patient has become heavier. Women undergoing IVF treatment in 1998 at QFG Toowoomba had an average weight of 66kgs, and this had increased up to 77kgs by 2013. More significantly, their BMI (which also takes into account their height) moved from normal at 24 to overweight at 28 in 2013.

Single Women and Same-sex Couples

Shifts have occurred in the structure of families and as a result, we have seen a considerable increase over the past five years in single and same-sex couples accessing donor sperm to start their families.

Looking at the subset of patients where female cause was the sole reason for them having treatment, the proportion of single women and same-sex couples undergoing IVF increased from 2% in 2008 to 22% in 2013.

15 years later

Women attending our fertility clinic in 2013 are significantly older, heavier and have an increased BMI than they did in 1998. However, as women delay child bearing, by choice or circumstance, we need to ensure that there isn’t an unrealistic expectation that medical science can undo the effects of age.

What would you advise?

Unfortunately, we still cannot reverse the aging process, but we can ensure women are given the correct information to help them make informed decisions earlier. For example, the increasing use of the Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) test or as it's more widely known, the egg timer test, can help a Fertility Specialist better assess a woman’s fertility and guide the direction of her fertility treatment.

Many women still remain unaware of the effect of weight on their fertility. We advise weight loss with simple lifestyle changes and, if necessary, dietician support. In addition to boosting a woman’s natural fertility, this can also have a beneficial impact on pregnancy and the health of the child.

This data was presented by Leita Fien, Fertility Nurse, Toowoomba at the 5th Congress of the Asia Pacific Initiative on Reproduction (ASPIRE 2014) in conjunction with the Fertility Society of Australia Annual Conference held in Brisbane April 4-6, 2014. Leita would like to acknowledge and thank her co-authors and colleagues Susan Lax, Julie Logan, Jeremy Osborn, and Dr John Esler, Clinical Director QFG Toowoomba.